In Wonder

Astonishment

The sense of wonder is an invitation.

Astonishment is an inquiry and sense of wonder, invitation. The sense of wonder is an internal call. And as you enter inside, you go on immersing deeper and deeper. One day you will disappear and only wonder will remain. That day enlightenment happened. If you follow the path of astonishment, one day only you will remain and astonishment will disappear. That is the culmination of science: ego will remain and astonishment will vanish. If you embark on the journey of wonder, you will vanish and wonder will remain, every pore of your being will be filled with its taste. Your existence itself will be a wonder.

Shiva has called it the foundation of yoga. Remove knowledge, become full of wonder. In the beginning it will appear difficult because you think that you know.

There was a great thinker, a very invaluable, important one: D. H. Lawrence. He was roaming in the garden with a small child. The child asked him, “Why are the trees green?”

A child can only ask such questions – so fresh! You cannot even think of such questions. You will say, “The trees are green because they are green! What is there to ask? What kind of a question is this? This child is stupid.” But think again, why the trees are green. Do you really know the answer?

Perhaps someone studying science may answer, “It is the chlorophyll that makes them green.” But it will not resolve the question of the child. It will ask again, “Why is there chlorophyll in the tree? Why should it be in the tree and why not in the man? And how the chlorophyll has found the trees?” The answer “chlorophyll” does not (answer?) any question.

All the answers found by science are of the same category. Those answers only push the question one step back, that’s all. If you are a little wise, you can raise the question again. Science cannot answer any “why.” That’s why science cannot destroy the sense of wonder, it can only create an illusion of destroying it.

But D. H. Lawrence was not a scientist. He was a poet, a novelist. He had an aesthetic sense. He stopped then and there and started thinking. He said to the child, “Give me some time. I don’t know myself.”

Your child also must have asked many times the same kinds of questions. Have you ever said: “I don’t know?” It hurts the ego. Every father thinks that he knows. The child asks and the father gives an answer. And because of these very answers the father loses his credibility later on, because one day the child comes to know that you know nothing. You were unnecessarily giving answers. You are as ignorant as I am. You were a little older so your ignorance was older, that’s all. But you give answers to the small child. The child, too, accepts them thinking you may be right. But how long will he believe it?

D.H. Lawrence stood there. He said, “I will think over it. And if you go on insisting, I can only say that the trees are green because they are green. There is no other answer. I am myself overwhelmed by this mystery.”